r place? Stay. I can be ill--overfatigued with my
journey--and you will come and tend me in my own room presently. That
can be managed, can't it?"

"Yes, madam, yes."

"Then wipe your eyes--be a brave girl. Think of Richard, and not of
yourself--think of him, when yonder boor is clasping the hand that once
rested in his--think of him, when those alien lips press yours at
parting, and be strong! If I were in your place, he would find that I
had not deserted him in his trouble."

"Desert him, madam? I? Oh, never!"

"To be weak is to desert him, girl--to let yonder man and your father
suspect that any friend of Richard's is beneath this roof is to desert
him--to weep when there is need to work is to desert him. Did I not tell
you I was his own mother; and yet _I_ shed no tears! Look up, and learn
your lesson from me."

The faces of the two women were indeed in strong contrast--the younger,
yielding, feeble, despairing; the elder, calm, patient of purpose, and
inflexible. Her cheeks were plump, and radiant with health; her form
erect and composed; her eyes, indeed, betrayed anxiety, but it was from
want of confidence in the person she addressed, not in herself; the
white hair seemed to fitly crown that figure, so full of earnestness and
firmness.

"I will do my best," cried the young girl, "though I know I am but weak
and foolish. Pity me, and pray for me. I am going to the torture, but I
will be resolute. Tell Hannah--the servant-maid--that you wish me to
attend you in your room. Send for me soon, for mercy's sake! How I long
to know how I can help our Richard!"

As she left the room Mrs. Gilbert's face grew dark. "A fool! a dolt!"
she muttered, angrily. "How could he risk so much for such a stake! Oh,
Richard! Richard!"--her voice began to falter at that well-loved
name--"was this to have been the end of all my hopes? What fatal issue,
then, may not my fears have end in! my beautiful, bright boy! The only
light my lonely life possessed! to think of you as like yourself, and
then to think of you as you are now!" She looked around her on the
sordid walls, the vulgar ornaments upon the mantel-piece, the wretched
ill-chosen books; then listened to the splash of the rain in the unpaved
street. "And this was Paradise, was it, my poor boy, because this girl
dwelt in it! I ought to have known that there was danger here. His
letters few and short and far between, his patient tarrying in so wild a
place, should have been e